Text by Nao Sugimoto

This is the first compilation album from Spekk compiled by the label owner
mondii. Each of the artists were asked to compose a track with their
interpretations of "small melodies" with Keywords like Warm, tender and
calm. It was meant to present diversity of minimal-style music in a peaceful
"harmonic" way. And it was a coincidence that both Taylor Deupree & Stephan
Mathieu created a track dedicated to their child.

The first half of the album is the more "digital" side and the last half
more "analog" side encompassing laptop digital processing to field recording
materials (For instance, Naph's track is only made out of frequencies within
the wind/air) to band oriented materials.

Participants delivers these great pieces of music from various continents
including USA, Sweden, France, Germany, Australia and Japan showing slight
relationships between each other which kind of gives us a warm feeling of
unity within this ongoing global minimalist scene. It was also my intention
to present that nowadays, there are not much differences between the outputs
from more digital background artists and more band oriented musicians due to
their methods of composing (technology) and interests and such. Evidently,
more and more rock labels will release digital processed music and bands
will use digital softwares, electronic artists will become more aware of
small sounds and warmth of the nature. I take this positive!

Artist Profile

Ultra Milkmaids:

Sogar:

Tomoyoshi Date:

Tomoyoshi currently resides in Tokyo, Japan. He is also one-half of the group Opitope with Chihei Hatakeyama (Kranky)
and runs the Kualauk Table label. He produces pure microsounds using various instruments such as vibraphones and electric guitars.

Taylor Deupree:

Hervé Boghossian:

Aen:

Aen is Yasufumi Suzuki from Tokyo, Japan. He also runs the commune label.
He is involved in many projects such as Voima, Trap, Waven. What makes
his music so special is his 2 old cassette recorders. He keeps on
overdubbing it to acquire the ideal sound and finalizes it in his laptop.

Naph:

Naph is Toru Ohara from Tokyo, Japan. He is interested in the uncertain
sounds within the nature. He mainly uses field recordings and
puts it into his self-programmed Max/MSP patches to sculpture unique sounds.
He is also the bassist of the group RdL.